Retail survival, a la Europe’s small stores

I was in Paris recently and while strolling down the ancient cobbled boulevard Haussmann, tracked down Les Caves d'Augé, the oldest wine store in Paris. This charming 1850 boutique is stocked with great French wines and credited to be the oldest wine shop in the city.

My visit to the shop was a fascinating experience. Avant-garde sommelier Marc Sibard offered over 5,000 French and foreign selections, all from small producers, at an incredible variety of price tags — from €7 to €70,000. What’s more, I also got a free lesson in Oenology!

I recommend this experience if you can afford to do it at least once. It is worth paying a bit more to know you are getting a bottle that an expert has taken real pride in helping choose for you.

Paris offers a choice of places to buy wine — the supermarket, the wine store, and little corner markets, called epiceries (“spice store”) or alimentations generales (general food store).

Every supermarket in Paris has a huge wine section. This is the cheapest place to get wine — dirt cheap stuff, from €2 to €20.

Even in a cosmopolitan city such as Paris, lots of big supermarkets close as early as 7 p.m. But, there are several small corner markets all over Paris; almost all open seven days a week and most of them stay open until midnight. It is wonderful to have this option when it is late and you want a bottle of water, snack or wine — as long as you realise the wine selection will probably be somewhat mediocre.

Alongside these, commonplace in France and almost all of Europe now are boutique-themed family-owned shops — with character and a unique experience of personalised service.

Small and defiant

An enchanting mystery in Europe is how do these boutique shops and mom-and-pop stores live to tell their tale in today’s world of giant retail chain supermarkets. This question comes to mind whenever I see a small mom-and-pop store or a boutique lodged between two chain stores. It is beautifully defiant and it is baffling how it remains in business.

In all of Europe, mom-and-pop shops seem to have reinvented themselves in order to compete in an extremely globalised setting and are making a comeback.

Take rural Germany. The once dying breed of small local grocery stores, due to competition from large supermarket chains, are experiencing a resurgence. These family-owned markets in German towns and villages, commonly known as Tante-Emma-Laden (‘Auntie Emma shops’), are gaining favour over large supermarkets due to their ease and familiarity with customers.

Many years ago, when grocery store chains offering deep discounts opened up in the countryside of Germany there was panic that ‘Auntie Emma’ shops would fade away. And, indeed, many small shops did vanish.

However, German retail giants have now become aware that trying to do business in little towns is often not worth the money. In the past decade, about 25,000 chain grocery stores have closed shop in towns of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants. And many supermarket chains have resolved not to locate in towns of less than 8,000 inhabitants.

Supple adaptation

The growing popularity of independently-owned general stores is due not only to their convenience but also their willingness to meet the needs of their communities. Today’s ‘Auntie Emmas’ offer much more than basic foodstuff.

The resurgence of the general store in rural Germany is proof that bigger is not always better. By offering what people need and catering to the specific needs of each community, ‘Auntie Emma’ shops are likely to remain a permanent fixture in Germany for years to come.

The European experience in retailing has shown that corner shops have become the first port of call, making them the star performers. They have proved supple, even more resilient than larger supermarkets and hypermarkets.

Hypermarkets, conversely, have suffered a significant drop in footfall as shoppers have cut back on optional spending.

Convenience stores in Germany and France are outperforming the total grocery market and are growing ahead of the overall market.

Europeans are experiencing the tangible benefits of mom-and-pop store shopping. You skip the drive to the mall or superstore, hence saving fuel and carbon emission. And, those fruit-stand apples use about one-tenth the energy to produce than the ones shipped across the globe to a supermarket.

(The author is former Europe Director, CII, and lives in Cologne, Germany. >blfeedback@thehindu.co.in )

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